Via Advertising Lab:
Nick Padmore at A List Apart took the 115 greatest slogans and dissected them to see what makes them work. The stats show that all great slogans should:
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1. Be five words in length.
2. Not mention the brand name.
3. Be declarative.
4. Be grammatically complete.
5. Be otherwise standard.
6. Contain alliteration, metaphor, or rhyme.
So going to the direct source I find these quotes:
In the year 2000, some of the stars of creative advertising during the 20th century nominated 115 best slogans, straplines, taglines, and headlines, all of which could broadly be termed “copy shots.“? As a resource on which to base a linguistic analysis leading to a mechanism for producing the Greatest Copy Shot Ever Written, this was hard to beat. So I didn’t try to beat it.
And..
Nobody’s going to stand up and say that the average six-year-old couldn’t have come up with Got milk? The words “got”? and “milk”? are a staple part of the diet of most English speakers, and there are only two ways of putting them together, one of which would be meaningless. What people often forget, however, is that there are over a million words in English (some estimate lower, some higher), and countless combinations into which those words can be placed. It’s a copywriter’s job to find the right ones for any particular brand. Essentially it’s like being an editor: You start with the entire English word-stock. Actually that’s not true; you start with the word-stocks of every language in existence - cf Vorsprung durch technik (Audi), one of the top 115. Scratch that, you start with everything that was ever uttered or could be uttered. Need I say more than, Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is (Alka Seltzer)? OK, so how many words could theoretically exist in any possible universe?
Pretty much sounds like domaining for the most part although, if you are looking for existing type-in traffic you have to start with existing words and combinations, run your best analysis, and make a call. If you are looking for future traffic you either have to predict trends or.. get lucky.
For example, first thing a domainer would do reading this piece is look for new terminology, terms, such as …
Happy domaining !
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Interestingly, copyshot.com was registered right before this post
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That is interesting..
“Pretty much sounds like domaining for the most part although, if you are looking for existing type-in traffic you have to start with existing words and combinations”
Thanks for the IDN plug Sahar!
An interesting article! Thanks for writing about this.
A List Apart separating from the crowd once again with this in-depth analysis.
I have invested some time in understanding the trademark protection, cybersquatting thing (as I inadvertently got involved in it) and everything in between.
Do you think that domainers purchasing corresponding domain names might eventually get tracked down and hunted by prospective trademark/copy owners?
So far, slogans used as (type-in) domains have been used for simple redirection to the corresponding trademark owners or launching (viral) campaigns. If a slogan/tagline/headline is a trademark, how can anyone but the trademark holder benefit from its usage?